


Through the Looking Glass

by Todesengel



Category: Voltron: Lion Voltron
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-07-28
Updated: 2003-07-28
Packaged: 2017-10-22 21:41:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/242872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Todesengel/pseuds/Todesengel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Is he a man dreaming he's a Captain?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through the Looking Glass

When Keith awoke he was, to put it mildly, confused. The last thing he remembered was saying goodnight to the Princess and then returning to his nice, neat, geometrically perfect room of white sheets and sharp corners. He'd had a nice night alone with his ruler and the unruly painting that would just wouldn't hang straight, studiously ignoring the banging that was come from the next room over, which Lance and Sven shared. His therapist kept telling him to loosen up, live a little, gain some flexibility, but what did his therapist know? She didn't have to live with a perpetually horny crew and fanfic writers hell-bent on making his life as painfully, miserably embarrassing as possible. Besides, Keith knew that confirming his suspicions of the source of the banging could only lead to uncomfortable questions and a potentially embarrassing physical reaction. He'd prefer to keep his illusions of heterosexuality, thank you very much. And so he'd straightened the picture, made sure all the objects on his desk were symmetrically arranged and angled at exactly 90 degrees and then gone to bed.

It was the whole waking up thing that threw him for a loop.

Keith was pretty sure that he wasn't in his room anymore. For one thing, Keith was pretty sure his sheets weren't made of satin, and, unless he'd had another one of those damn memory lapses, he didn't think he'd ever put glow-in-the-dark porn pictures on the ceiling. Nor were the two bodies on either side of him there when he'd gone to bed.

This latter part, however, wasn't uncommon. In fact Keith didn't even mind the bodies, not at first. He knew that his team wasn't the bravest people in the universe, and he'd woken up several times to find his entire team trying to crowd into his bed because they were frightened by the Arusian thunderstorms, although oddly enough, Keith could never actually recall hearing thunder or seeing lighting. Even Allura and Coran had tried to get into his bed on several occasions. So lying sandwiched between to team members wasn't exactly new or confusing. The hands that wandered down and touched his morning stiffy and cupped his ass and the lips that nibbled on his earlobes  those were new.

Keith bolted out of the bed and ended up somewhere near the vicinity of the door. He looked at the sensually disheveled Lance and Sven who sat up with twin expressions of confusion on their faces. Had Keith not been so repressed, this would have been a fantasy come true. But this vision of two nubile, virile, very naked young me in a bed, stirred feelings in Keith that he wasn't quite ready to express and instead of the clear, articulate diatribe on personal space that he'd wanted to deliver all Keith could say was, "The fuck?"

"Keith?" Lance somehow made his voice sound sexy, despite the fact that by all rights he should have sounded like a toad, just like every other normal person did. "What's wrong?"

Keith decided to start simple. "Where am I?"

"Oh dear." Lance sighed and shot a worried look at Sven. "I think he's relapsing."

The tired looking Swede nodded.

"Relapsing? Relapsing from what?" Keith demanded.

"Keith," Lance said slowly, calmly, "you're on Arus. You're safe. You don't have to be frightened of us. We're your friends."

"I know that, idiot. I meant where the hell am I? Whose room is this? Where's my room? And haven't you guys ever heard of picking up after yourselves? Seriously," Keith looked about the messy room with a disgusted expression on his face, "this place looks like a hell hole."

"It's okay, Keith, you're safe here," Lance repeated.

Keith sighed. "You still haven't answered my question."

"You're in our room, Lance and mine," Sven said. "We're here to help you, Keith. We know that you've been through a traumatic experience and "

"What traumatic experience? What the hell are you guys talking about?"

Sven looked at Lance and raised an eyebrow. "He's repressing again."

"Repressing _what_?!"

Lance sighed. "Looks like it's another trip to Dr. Gorma's. You grab his legs; I'll take his arms. You took his knifes away, right?"

Sven nodded. "On three. One, two, three!"

The two naked boys leapt from the bed, arms outstretched to catch Keith who just stared in awe at their naked forms. Who knew those skintight flight suits could conceal so much? Before Keith realized it, however, he was trussed up like the Christmas pig. The ease with which he was tied made him wonder if maybe Sven and Lance had done this sort of thing before, but with a more recreational bent in mind. He certainly couldn't explain the fur lined handcuffs Sven produced otherwise. They certainly weren't standard issue, and if they were, Keith wanted to know why the hell he hadn't gotten a pair.

He *was* the captain, after all.

Hey way, that's right. He was the captain. He shouldn't be treated like this.

"Stop this right now," Keith demanded. "I'm the captain! You're not allowed to do this to me!"

Lance and Sven looked at him blankly, and proceeded to drape a sheet over his body to cover his bits and pieces. Keith supposed he should be grateful, but he was a little too shocked by his subordinate's lack of obedience.

"Look's like it's going to be a bad one, Sven," Lance said over Keith's head. "You took away his knives, right?"

"Yes, Lance, I took his knives. Do you want to teach me how to tie my shoes next?"

"Just checking. I *don't* want a repeat of last time. You know how hard it is to find good help  more importantly, help that'll put up with Allura."

"I know, I know. Jeez, you make someone a captain and they suddenly think they're God."

"Well if you ever paid as much attention to the real world as you did to your machines, maybe you'd have a higher rank."

Keith blinked, suddenly even more confused. Lance a captain? Sven a mechanic? This was beyond strange; this was borderline impossible. Then he knew it. This was a dream! Of course! His insanity had finally gotten the best of him and he was hallucinating. Or perhaps one of those crazy fanfic writers was doing this to himit wouldn't be the first time he'd gone mad or had his world turned upside down. He'd suffered through worse and then been returned to his world unscathed. What was done to him by these writers wasn't permanent, not even the things that psycho Todesengel thought up. Admittedly he could no longer wear or sleep on anything filled with down, but that, his therapist had explained, was because even nightmares can have a lasting psychological effect and *not* because he'd actually had wings at some point and the smell and feel of down brought up horrible images of blood and death and violence.

"Ha, ha, very funny. You almost had me for a moment," Keith said. "I almost believed you, but then you guys went too far. There's no way Sven is a mechanic or you're a captain, Lance. Who put you guys up to this? Todesengel? Taryn? Forest? I know it's not Spubba because if it was him, I would've woken up as Hunk's bondage bitch."

Sven and Lance exchanged worried glances.

"I think we should sedate him. He's babbling," Sven whispered. Lance nodded and Sven edged over to a bedside table.

"Sedate me? Guys, really, you can stop acting now. I'm sure that whoever is writing this would be more than willing to forgive you for letting your roles drop. I'll take whatever flak this generates."

"Just sit still Keith," Lance soothed, "This will only hurt for a little while and then everything will be all right."

Sven approached Keith slowly, a syringe in his hand. Keith tensed in his bonds, and shook his head violently.

"No, guys, you don't have to do this. Really, you don't. Everything is fine. It's just some stupid story. Really, guys," Sven stuck the needle into Keith's arm, and Keith could feel the sedative spread through his body, "stop. Please. Stop"

***

When Keith woke this time, it to stare into Dr. Gorma's wrinkled face. Keith shuddered.

"Oh God, the nightmare's gotten worse."

"Hmm," Dr. Gorma said.

Keith tried to sit up and groaned when he noticed that he was strapped to the examining table. He cast his eyes upward to the off-white ceiling, a deep, sorrowful sigh rushing through his lips. "Now, really. This whole bondage thing has gone too far. And whoever's sick idea it is to slash me with Dr. Gorma should seriously consider seeking professional help."

"Hmm," Dr. Gorma said again.

"Hmm what?" Lance's face suddenly came into Keith's view, worry wrinkles marring the smooth expanse of his forehead. "What's wrong with him, Doc?"

"I'm not quite sure. He's in almost perfect physical condition -- those wounds he received in the pit of skulls have healed nicely. As for his mental state...well, I'm not a trained psychiatrist, but it seems to me as though he thinks he is someone else. Who, I'm not sure, but it's not the Keith we know."

"It's still Keith, though, right? It's not some totally new personality, like Cleopatra or Napoleon or someone like that, right? We aren't going to have to deal with a real crazy, right?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure that he's still Keith. He sounds and reacts like Keith, right down to the plaintive questioning of the use of restraints and the rhetorical why me, God.'"

"Hey!" Keith protested. "I have nev -- well, almost never asked a rhetorical 'why me, God' type of question. And I resent the fact that you all think that I've come unhinged. I am a *Captain* in the Galaxy Garrison! They do *not* make crazy people captains! So untie me right now before I have the lot of you court-martialed!"

Lance sighed. "See what I mean, Doc?"

"Hmm. Yes. Very interesting. It appears as if Keith is suffering from selective Amnesia."

"Is there anything you can do for him?"

"Not really, no." Dr. Gorma touched something outside of Keith's field of vision and suddenly the table on which he lay moved and shifted until he was sitting upright and no longer staring up Lance's nose. "Talk to him, Captain. Try and jog some of his memory."

"All right." Lance reached out and touched Keith's leg, high up on the thigh. Keith shifted uncomfortably and fought to not look down. "Keith, it's me. Lance. Your friend. Listen to me, do you remember who you are?"

"Of course I remember who I am. I didn't hit my head on anything, you know. I'm perfectly sane. I'm the captain of the Voltron Force, sent by the GG to Arus to help Princess Allura fight off Doom. You're my second-in-command, which is a field promotion because Sven was almost killed by Haggar, and then captured by Doom when the planet he was recuperating on was invaded and enslaved. The other members of our team are Hunk, Pidge and Allura who took Sven's place. Hunk's the mechanical expert, and Pidge is computer genius. I fly the Black lion and -- What are you shaking your head for?"

"Because that's not who you are. Keith it's true that you're a member of the Voltron Force, but you're not a Captain. You were my second-in-command until Haggar almost killed *you* and *you* were the one who was captured and enslaved on planet Doom, not Sven. We rescued you six months ago, and you've been recovering ever since. Keith, what you're telling me is the life of someone else. Hunk isn't a mechanic's expert -- in fact, I doubt he knows a crescent wrench from a sledgehammer -- Sven is. And Allura didn't need saving; we were sent to Planet Arus to prevent Allura from selling it into slavery in exchange for a bevy of nubile, virile sex slaves. To lose Arus would open up the Alliance's flank to attack."

"No. That's not right. Allura is a sweet, if misguided and common sense deficient, girl. She would *never* sell her people and her planet."

"Yes, she would," Sven said as he walked through the door. He wiped his grease-stained hands on his pants and came over to Lance and Keith. "Her people hate her, and she hates her people. She's a heartless nymphomaniac; rumor has it that her father died _in flagrante delecto_. His heart just couldn't keep up with Allura's sexual pace."

"And, what, the two of you are lovers?" Keith said.

Sven winced slightly, as if Keith's words pained him. "Keith, we, the three of us, have been lovers for longer than I can remember."

"Yeah, right. Pull the other one. This is a dream. It has to be."

"Keith," Lance's hand gently caressed the side of Keith's face, a familiar gesture that brought up memories of other gestures, other touches, other moments of intense, burning, painful intimacy that were too real to be faked. "Keith, I know it's hard. I know. I know that you want to forget what was done to you, to forget what you've been through. But you can't. If you repress those memories, you're just going to hurt yourself."

"Please, Keith, let us help. We love you." Sven picked up Keith's hand, touched it to his lips. His calloused fingers gentle rubbed Keith's hand in small, soothing circles. "We want to help you. It hurts us to see you in such pain."

Keith shook his head. He was experiencing conflicting images, memories of his real world and new, frightening images of mingled hair and sweat and love and then of pain and fear and total, fearful, frightening loneliness. He was confused and a little frightened. Which life was true?

"Please. I want to go home," Keith whispered, before he slumped forward in the restraints.

***

Keith awoke slowly and alone. The cotton sheets were cool against his bare skin and he rolled over, stretching luxuriously. He felt weak and thin, as if he had been sick for a long time and his fever had finally broken. He recalled a dream, a feverish delusion of some other time, some other place, of blond hair and blue eyes and a tense, unhappy life.

It seemed to him that this dream was important, something to be held onto. But the dream slipped away and Keith made a small, unhappy noise.

"You're awake." The mattress dipped as Sven sat down beside the prone Keith, entwining his long fingers in Keith's hair, gently stroking his lover's scalp. "How do you feel?"

"Weak. Tired. Kind of achy. What happened?"

"You, well, you went kind of crazy on us."

"I'm sorry." Keith reached up and pulled Sven's head down, kissing him gently. "How's Lance?"

"Well, you know Lance. If there isn't some crisis he has to take care of he gets grumpy." Sven reluctantly disengaged. "I'll go get him. He'll be happy to know you're awake and back to your old self. You just rest, okay?"

"Yeah." Keith sat up in the large bed and watched Sven go. The last vestiges of his dream screamed that there was something wrong with this scene, that Sven and Lance weren't supposed to be like this, weren't supposed to be in his life like this.

Keith shook off the doubt and stretched slowly. He wanted to see Lance, he wanted to go for a walk in the sun and feel the grass beneath his feet, smell his lover's scents, everything he had missed when he had been trapped on Doom.

The dream was gone by the time Sven closed the door.  



End file.
